Monday, November 19, 2007

Science and how we know we are right

Ben Goldacre, who blogs at Bad Science, has an excellent article on homeopathy which appeared in The Guardian last week.While homeopathy is not a subject angry doc discusses often, the topics addressed in the article - why a form of unproven therapy nevertheless has its believers, the common fallcies used by its proponents to defend it against criticism, why science remains our best method of knowing whether a mode of therapy works, and what kinds of harm can result when we ignore science and promote an unproven therapy - may apply to many other types of alternative medicine.It's a pretty long article, but if you read all of it, you will "understand evidence-based medicine to degree level".Do have a read.

2 Comments:

heh.. reminds me of a patient i once saw with type 1 dm... she decided to visit a homeopath.. who told her to stop her insulin and eat nothing but an apple a day.. after a week.. she went comatose woke up 5 days later in e hosp..